ABOUT HIJAU is GREEN

"Hijau" is a Malay word which means "green". This blog entitled HIJAU is GREEN is an outlet for me to post articles and opinions on issues affecting development, the environment, education, labour and society. My name is Faezah Ismail and I am a journalist from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Email me at surveypeopleplaces @ gmail.com

He believes in living in an environment where the pace of life matches with the speed of walking.

He learned about this way of life when he spent some time (1999 and 2000) in Zermatt village, a car-free Swiss mountain resort with a breathtaking view of the Matterhorn.

Zermatt residents are able to “conquer their environmental problems because they have lived their lives at walking speed”.

It is an ideal to aspire to, he says.

New Straits Times columnist Wan A. Hulaimi (New Sunday Times, January 17, 2010), another walking devotee, wonders why buildings today do not come with sheltered corridors like those built during colonial times.

Susuki’s message of matching the pace of life with walking speed can guide us to make better choices.

In the mad rush to chase our dreams, we may have lost the desire to walk and, by extension, the wisdom to check our priorities.

Walking allows us to see things in perspective as we soak up the mood of our surroundings: trees that stand tall, flowers that glow in full bloom and water features that evoke tranquillity.

We don’t know why but we feel a strong connection with living things.

Biologist Edward. O. Wilson (The Creation, 2006, Page 63) explains that “the gravitational pull of Nature on the human psyche can be expressed in a single, more contemporary expression, biophilia, which I defined in 1984 as the innate tendency to affiliate with life and lifelike processes.

“From infancy to old age, people everywhere are attracted to other species. Novelty and diversity of life are esteemed.

“Nowadays the word ‘extraterrestrial’ summons in ultimate manner the countless images of still unexplored life, replacing the old and once potent ‘exotic’, which drew earlier travellers to unnamed islands and remote jungles.

“To explore and affiliate with life, to turn living creatures into emotion-laden metaphors, and to install them in mythology and religion — these are the easily recognised fundamental processes of biophilic cultural evolution.

“The affiliation has a moral consequence: the more we come to understand other life forms, the more our learning expands to include their vast diversity, and the greater value we will place on them and, inevitably, on ourselves”.

Have we really lost the use of our feet because we now live in a “civilised” world where motorised transportation dominates?

That is sad because as Murad puts it, “walking sustains man’s sanity”.

Haven’t you gone for a walk to clear your head?

Thomas Mann was spot on when he discovered that “thoughts come clearly while one walks”.